


Father's Pride

by Saesama



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saesama/pseuds/Saesama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets a chance to say goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Father's Pride

You look at the boy curiously. You know that this boy is the genetic clone of your father; that he was born in a mirror world where a man similar to you was Jane's son and his father; that, genetically, Jane is your grandmother. The thought is disconcerting, but you've spend the last five months as the guest of an insectoid chess piece on a planet as unlike your own as possible, and you suppose your concept of 'unreasonably strange' has shifted.

John's looking at you, too, out of the corner of his eye, and when he gnaws on his lip in thought, he almost actually looks like your father and you're thrown for half a second. He moves, aborts the action, sits and scrunches the end of his hood in his hands for a moment, and you take pity on him. "Is there something you need, John?"

He jumps and looks startled and guilty and, briefly, so grief-stricken that your own heart twinges in sympathy. "Um, no, no, it's fine," he says hurriedly, waving his hands. "I'm just- yeah, nevermind, sorry to bug you, da- uh, Mr. Crocker."

"John," you say patiently, because you recognize teenage stalling when you see it. "What's wrong?"

There's that grief again, etched so deep on his face that it ages him and for a moment he _is_ your father, perhaps remembering the sister he lost so long ago. "It's just," he starts, the words short and painful. "I thought, when I first saw you, that you were my dad, and you're a lot like him, and-" He stops abruptly and looks miserable and embarrassed and he won't look at you. 

You take a step closer and you're shocked to see tears standing in the corners of his eyes. John is far from the crying type, for all of his melodramatics, and you're immediately concerned. "John?" you prod.

"I never got to tell him goodbye," he whispers, and his words are a silver knife in your gut. "I spent all day avoiding him until the Game happened, then by the time I found him, it was too late, I was too late, he was-" His words break again and he savagely scrubs tears from his cheek. "You're not him," he continues. "I get that. You're um, my son, not Jane's, and you grew up different, but you're still really, really close to being him, and-" He glances up at you, hopeful and devastated. "...can I have a hug?"

You immediately curve your arms around his shoulders, because he may be your father's clone and a very recent acquaintance, but you've defined your life in being a father and right now, he needs one. He starts to cry in earnest, wetting your shoulder with tears, and you can barely hear him whispering apologies and goodbyes to a man three years dead into your shirt. You pet his hair as if he is much younger than he is, as if he's a child instead of bordering on a man, and his fingers flex against your back. 

"I'm not your father," you murmur into his hair. "But I cannot think of a single reason he would not be so, so proud of you." John gives a harsh sob and clings to you as if drowning.


End file.
